


Bigger Soul

by Psycada



Category: Dororo (Anime 2019), Dororo (Anime)
Genre: Being rude to Okaka, But that won't stop me from drowning this place in comfort fics, Extremely uncanon as of episode 15, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 08:25:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18567589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Psycada/pseuds/Psycada
Summary: Hyakkimaru learns what crying is.





	Bigger Soul

**Author's Note:**

> Big thanks to @eternal_song for proofreading this! Made the fic a lot more coherent (and fixed a lot of passive voice).
> 
> This fic takes place after episode 13.

Hyakkimaru steadily woke to a muffled, high-pitched whine, his grogginess heavy enough to tell him it wasn’t quite time to be walking again. As he tried to go back to sleep, the noise continued, hitching into squeaks despite clear efforts to stifle it. Eventually it disturbed him enough to sit up and investigate it, though weariness asked him to lay back down.

It wasn’t hard to find- a mere few feet away from him was Dororo, the apparent source. He realized he had heard this sound before, somewhere early in his journey, but it had been right when he could first sense sound, and all the others pounding into his head drowned out this specific one. Afterwards, he had only heard softer copies of it- a small hiccup or whimper of sound, more often than not at night, near him. 

This time it was louder, desperate- and interspaced with a choked and repeated, “Mama?  _ Mama!”  _

Had that all been from Dororo? He had ignored it all this time. Hyakkimaru wasn’t sure what it meant, really. He hadn’t made that kind of noise before. What made it happen?

He scooted closer to Dororo, wondering if he could explain why it was such a prevalent noise, and why Hyakkimaru hadn’t made it yet. As soon as his hand touched Dororo’s shoulder he received a shriek and slap, the flame of the soul suddenly flickering to a concentrated inferno, ever so briefly. Dororo immediately scrambled away from him, cries still managing to escape.

The only thing Hyakkimaru felt from Dororo was a protective hostility, like he shouldn’t have heard anything in the first place. 

He scooted back, letting Dororo have some space. Sleep tugged once more at him, but he did spend a moment quietly looking over at the kid. Dororo only stared back, A wall of unease replacing the the fading tinges of initial fear. Seemed like Hyakkimaru wouldn’t he able to get any closer tonight, though, so the best course of action was to lay down and try to regain the sleep he had lost. Staying awake wasn’t going to help him slay any more demons.

Some time passed, but there was something keeping him from sleeping again. He sensed, in the corner of his vision, Dororo tentatively creeping closer. Hoping he’d cut it out if he ignored him, Hyakkimaru merely pretended he had already fallen asleep. As he lay limp, Dororo eventually crouched next to him, Hyakkimaru feeling annoyed at being watched like this. For a while Dororo simply stared at him, a weird tension lingering around them. Still, Hyakkimaru stayed motionless. If he did this long enough, would Dororo leave him alone? He felt a hand carefully push into his side, hesitantly shaking him. The most it escalated to was a single poke on his face, as if Dororo wasn’t sure he wanted to wake him up in the first place. 

The quietest little, “ _Aniki_ ,” he’d ever heard broke the silence of the night, and still Hyakkimaru played along with his unconsciousness facade. 

Seemingly satisfied with his test, Dororo came just a bit closer. Hyakkimaru felt Dororo lift his arm. Before he could even guess at what he was doing Dororo suddenly slumped his body against Hyakkimaru’s, head resting on his chest, and let his arm wrap around him. Almost immediately Hyakkimaru could feel warmth between them, while Dororo’s stress dissolved.

While Dororo may have been calmed, Hyakkimaru’s mind searched for answers. This wasn’t  _ bad _ , per say, but Dororo certainly hadn’t acted like this before. Usually he’d wiggle away from any hold Hyakkimaru put him in, even if it was something like yanking him away from something clearly dangerous. What made him tolerate  _ this _ touch? 

He tried to place himself in Dororo’s position- smaller, younger. No weapons to protect himself with, much less the knowledge to use them. Memories of home and Papa were the first thing to resurface, far before his senses had come back to him. The big soul was always a constant, always looking over him, providing for every little need until he could get it on his own (even then, some things the soul would simply give to him.). But the most relevant detail was how, each night, he would shove himself into Papa’s side until he cooped Hyakkimaru up and held him close. There was a certain comfort in a bigger soul holding him like that, in that safety, when he believed Papa must’ve been the strongest soul in his little world. 

He wondered, for a moment, where Dororo’s bigger soul was. 

It couldn’t have been the ones he had seen when they first met. They had been bigger, but Dororo’s soul had only given off fear and aggression at them. The older soul that joined them every once in a while couldn’t have been it either; their appearance was too erratic to actually be taking care of Dororo. The demon that nearly choked him in rope wasn’t it either, even with all of Dororo’s affections and calling her “Mama”. 

And, well, she couldn’t really be it  _ now _ .

But now that he thought about it, Dororo, no matter what, would return to him. Hell, he usually didn’t leave Hyakkimaru’s side in the first place. Over the course of their journey, the smaller soul kept looking to him for protection. Whenever Dororo was scared of something he was immediately by Hyakkimaru’s side, usually trying to take his prosthetics off, even if the fearful entity was only a harmless ghoul. And as time went on Hyakkimaru found himself wanting to protect Dororo more and more, though he was still focused on getting his body back.

And now Dororo had cuddled up next to him, Hyakkimaru feeling small hands grip his torn up clothing. He placed his own over one, realizing his palm easily covered Dororo’s softly clenched fist. He was so  _ small _ , and he wondered how long it had been since he was this size. Hyakkimaru found himself wanting to just scoop him up and hold him, despite having tried to close himself off earlier.  

Now came the question- had he become Dororo’s bigger soul? 

He felt Dororo’s face press into him, the whimper coming back to interrupt his thinking. Hyakkimaru felt a sudden need to stop it, forgetting his cold demeanor.

“D-Don’t cry…” The need to get his words out made him stumble over them. He took a moment to focus on the next ones, remembering how Dororo had taught him. “I’m your… big soul.” He carefully took his other hand and cupped the back of Dororo’s head, feeling strands of hair brush through his fingers, holding him closer. Hooking an arm under Dororo, Hyakkimaru shifted upwards, sitting up to hold him in his lap- as his own Papa had done- and let Dororo’s head lean against his chest. He wondered if Papa had ever said anything when he did that, even if he knew Hyakkimaru couldn’t hear. 

He rested his head on Dororo’s, working up words he wanted to say. 

“Dororo,” like Dororo did earlier, Hyakkimaru merely whispered, “Are you awake?”

Silence met him, like how Hyakkimaru feigned sleep earlier.

“I’m sorry. For killing her.”

He could feel just the slightest tremble in Dororo’s hands when he said that. His soul seemed to give away that he wasn’t quite out just yet, burning with attention to Hyakkimaru’s words.

“I thought if I had my body back, I could-“

He stumbled on the words for some reason. Not in the same way he did when he first had his voice back- he knew how to say it, he  _ wanted  _ to say it, but something about saying it seemed so awful. His grip tightened on Dororo’s arm, though not enough to hurt him. 

“I thought, maybe, they’d- I could-” his throat hurt, breathing hitching against his will, “Family. I want family.”

Something about saying the words solidified a realization. The same whine from Dororo now erupted from himself, liquid gathering around his eyes and rolling down his face. His chest seemed to seize and keep forcing him to make the noise, Hyakkimaru hugging Dororo closer and giving in to the encroaching feeling, letting himself sob and sniff and  _ cry. _

Dororo suddenly sprang to life, Hyakkimaru’s outburst easily weakening his sleeping facade. 

“Wait, wait! Aniki! Aniki, don’t cry!”

Dororo seemed to scramble for options, hands looking for some place to put themselves, before Dororo held Hyakkimaru’s cheeks in them. Hyakkimaru, at the very least, seemed to regain himself enough to face Dororo. “Aniki…” Dororo’s thumb softly moved back and forth on Hyakkimaru’s face, catching a tear and smearing it. 

“Aniki, you have me, ok? You heard me in that cave. I’m always gonna be there for you.”

For a while, Hyakkimaru still cried, Dororo gently taking a hand and running it along his back. The presence of another person, somehow, made this feeling easier for Hyakkimaru. Dororo, too, had taken care of him. Hyakkimaru’s theory on big souls needed work, then. He couldn’t recall his big soul needing any help, though his lack of senses might’ve kept him from knowing that. But Dororo cooked fish for him, carried his arms, and now, was comforting him in the middle of the night. 

“You don’t need them to survive, ok? You’ll be alright.”

“They want to kill me.” His voice still came out as a strained whine.

“And you’ll  _ survive. _ ”

Dororo hugged Hyakkimaru, briefly letting himself be open. “I’ll stay with you, ok? I don’t have a mama or papa either. But I have you.” 

Hyakkimaru hesitated, then hugged Dororo back. Neither of them had parents, then. After some quiet, Dororo asked, “Hey, who raised you then, huh? You couldn’t have made all those limbs yourself.”

Hyakkimaru paused, mulling over the words. Despite thinking of him just a moment ago, he had ignored the fact that his Papa had raised him. His papa had  _ cared  _ for him. He briefly considered the thought of returning to him with all his body parts, testaments to his journey.He’d bring Dororo along, too. 

“...I had a Papa. Not the one you saw. A real one. You could meet him.”

“What’s he like?”

“Big and strong. He takes care of people. And he would…” Demonstrating his memory, Hyakkimaru scooped Dororo up and set him in his lap, holding him in place, “...hold me.” He felt Dororo tense at the sudden movement, but the action was less personal than comforting him was, so he let himself relax. “I’ll meet him again, someday. And I’ll bring you.” He wondered- what did his Papa look like? What would he  _ act  _ like? There was always a sense of protection radiating from him. At the very least, Papa was a safe place.

As Hyakkimaru held Dororo, the kid started to fall asleep, though he held a wooden hand next to him. He no longer needed to question the action— Dororo felt warm and safe here, and there wasn’t any need to bother him. 

Hyakkimaru yawned, interrupting the quiet contemplation. All that thinking about his Papa or family could happen later, actually. How late was it again? He felt far too tired to think about anything at this point. After the simple, resigned statement of, “Should be sleeping,” he flopped to the ground, bringing Dororo with him. On his side, he held Dororo close to him, who had succumbed to his own drowsiness and decided resisting could wait for the morning. And after all, this  _ was _ his original goal. Not that he would admit that (he could have  _ sworn _ Hyakkimaru was asleep).

Sleep was quickly overtaking him, but there was still a single question that burned in his fading consciousness. 

“Dororo?” 

A complaining murmur answered him.

“Are you my family?”

Dororo wiggled a bit closer, letting himself be just a bit vulnerable, if only for one night.

“Of course I am. That’s why I call you Aniki.”

“Do I call you Aniki?”

A small hand gently placed itself over Hyakkimaru’s mouth.

“Save questions for morning. Please.”

For the rest of the night (and well through the morning), Dororo was silent, dreams evidently peaceful. Hyakkimaru decided that, just for once, he could let himself relax and let Dororo catch up on sleep. 

After all, as his big soul, he needed to look out for him.


End file.
